Scenario

Recently, I got a constant and regular multilingual localization job for a mobile phone game. The content is about the game text updates. The volume is rather small—75-100 words once a week.
Since this is the first cooperation, the client would like us to take up the Malay translation firstly, if the initial project runs smoothly without any issues, she will consider to give more languages to us.

Project details

Since the translatable text are the updates of an existing game, the client sent all existing translated game files to our translators on reference and consistency purposes. Therefore we should read the reference file carefully to make sure all the terms are checked and used to maintain translation consistency with the already translated game text. Apart from this, the translators must strictly follow up the below instructions:

1. Follow the maximum text length specified. Max text length for some strings text in the xls file should NOT exceed more than 115 characters including blank spaces. If not possible, abbreviations are required. Only if quality is seriously compromised, it could leave longer and the client will review the case at the studio.

2. %U, %U1, %U2… parameters are used so that the game logic can replace the tags for numbers. The translator should check if the word sorting is correct for the Malay target language.

3. {0xcolorcode} and {/} tags are color tags used for formatting the text. The tags could not be modified, but any English text inside the tags should be translated.

4. For best translation results the client recommends the translator to play the actual game as much as possible before starting the translation.

5. The whole translation should be in informal tense. As the previous projects always use informal language (tu, du, etc) except for French (we use “vous”).

Solutions

(1) CCJK created a new TM based on the previous projects. It is an effective way to maintain translation consistency. When made a new TM, we applied SDLX to align the translations and finally imported the TXT file into the new TM.

(2) We selected native Malay translators who have game translation experience and love playing mobile phone games. But when we allocating the job to the qualified translators, we have really met some difficulties. Since this is a tiny project, the money is rather small. Most of Malay translators rejected us directly. Few of them thought the project is too tight. (i.e As the volume is 99 words, so this short TAT is feasible) For a while, it seems there is no one willing to work for us. But after hard work, we finally found the qualified translator and editor who are willing to take up the project.

(3) CCJK asked the translators twice to carefully follow the instructions before starting the translation.

(4) Always ready for help if the translator have any query need our help.

Experience

The key point of manage a tiny constant localization project is to find a reliable translator to take up the job. Always try best to use the same people to work on the project on regular basis, therefore the translator are used to the instructions and we can avoid any translation problems like the one who bothered to checking translation instructions beforehand and delivered the work which need to be improved.

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